I was kinda like 'mmmmmeee....hhh....' and then the last 30 seconds or so were awesome.posted by six-or-six-thirty at 8:49 AM on September 15, 2009

It is interesting to see binormative assumptions every once in a while. We have plenty of media that just assume we are all heterosexual, but the assumption that we are all bi is kind of a novel thing. How long until we see homonormative stuff?posted by idiopath at 8:49 AM on September 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

everything about that is amazing. I'm a cynical bastard, but shit like this reminds me that sometimes the world is an okay place.posted by shmegegge at 9:01 AM on September 15, 2009

Many years ago I translated something that was going to be part of a submission to the EU, on the history of Chinese migration to Europe. Anyway, apparently when Chinese people first arrived in Liverpool it was a sailors, what with the 'Pool being a major port and everything, and it was exclusively men given the gender make-up of the merchant navy at the time. The local women were keen on Chinese husbands as anecdotally they were less likely to drink and beat you than their English counterparts, though on the down side they might be more likely to gamble everything away behind your back.
I think that should be enough stereotypes to be going on with for the time being.posted by Abiezer at 9:02 AM on September 15, 2009 [8 favorites]

Typically a shift in implied gender of a romantic interest would also be accompanied by a shift in implied audience - but she continues as if she were still addressing the same imagined audience. She is not overtly calling her audience bisexual, but there is something going on there I am pretty sure.posted by idiopath at 9:13 AM on September 15, 2009

"I'm not gonna tell you his name, cuz you're not gonna be able to find him now"

This was great. I'm gonna watch the rest of her uploads now, as I suspect further greatness may be found on that list.posted by EatTheWeak at 9:15 AM on September 15, 2009

I loved this video. Hilarious and light-hearted. But I think there's some real pain underneath this idea.

In Freakonomics they discussed a study of roughly 300,000 users from a "major online dating site":

Roughly half of the white women on the site and 80 percent of the white men declared that race didn’t matter to them. But the response data tell a different story. The white men who said that race didn’t matter sent 90 percent of their email queries to white women. The white women who said race didn’t matter sent about 97 percent of their e-mail queries to white men. Is it possible that race really didn’t matter for these white women and men and that they simply never happened to browse a nonwhite date that interested them? Or, more likely, did they say that race didn’t matter because they wanted to come across—especially to potential mates of their own race—as openminded? The gulf between the information we publicly proclaim and the information we know to be true is often vast.

Dating is difficult. Dating While Minority is really fucking difficult.posted by naju at 9:17 AM on September 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

On this note, I have heard descriptions (my google fu is failing me for links) of how this is particularly difficult for black women and asian men. There is a stereotypical continuum of masculinity / femininity that I have heard explicitly described (in reference to porn):

Black - White - Asian

Where a pairing "works" in terms of stereotypes of gender and race if the man is in the same position or to the left of the woman. Many people, consciously or unconsciously, seem to take this seriously. For simple mathematical reasons, this makes it much harder for black women and asian men to find partners.

Just to be clear, I don't know for certain that trends in interracial dating actually follow that rule, and the perception of that trend may be a part of the stereotype.posted by idiopath at 9:26 AM on September 15, 2009

This was great. When I got to the "Just please, don't date my Dad" part, I was very glad that my cubemates were all in a meeting somewhere else, so I wouldn't have to explain why I was laughing and falling out of my chair.posted by rtha at 9:29 AM on September 15, 2009

Dating is difficult. Dating While Minority is really fucking difficult.

In speed-dating studies, women of most races exhibit strong same-race preferences (Asian women apparently do not). Of course, this has the effect of producing serious obstacles for both men and women of minorities.posted by grobstein at 9:38 AM on September 15, 2009

Asian men need to date black women in order to balance the stereotype of black men going after white women and white men going after asian women.posted by snofoam at 9:41 AM on September 15, 2009

Grobstein, here's that speed-dating study (PDF) from the Review of Economic Studies. Women of all races, including Asian, were biased most favorably towards men of the same race, and against men of some or all other races.

Women of all the races which were studied revealed a strong preference for men of their own race for marriage, with the caveat that East Asian women only discriminated against Black and Hispanic men, and not against White men. A woman's race was found to have no effect on the men's choices. [here]posted by kid ichorous at 9:49 AM on September 15, 2009 [10 favorites]

At the dating service I worked at so long ago, race not only turned out to be a Big Issue, but in ways that we really did not expect. We had some very broad strokes categories, and, after a tussle between "Oriental" and "Asian," "East Asian" was settled upon as being at least more descriptive. Data from the studies cited in the research from the business plan (which had some very amusing bits of significance we didn't really want to put in the dating profiles, like head size) indicated that race was a factor, and that pre-weighting that preference slightly helped. So, if you were Caucasian and you felt that dating other Caucasians was more important to you, as an individual than, say, height, that'd be under consideration in the calculations.

However, we realized that "East Asian" turned out to be too large of a category, after we matched people who identified that way with other people who identified that way when they said, "Yes, I'd like to date someone who is East Asian." We heard from numerous Chinese folks that they would not date Japanese folks, and vice versa, and that even suggesting a potential match (even though they marked down that they preferred East Asians) there was not only Right Out, but fairly offensive.

I suspect/hope that this sort of thing has died off, but who knows?

Dating is hard. Dating While Minority is harder. Online Dating While Minority When The People Constructing the Matches Have a Naive Understanding of the Complexities of Race Relations ... hardest.posted by adipocere at 9:54 AM on September 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

I've met enough Asian women who wouldn't ever date anyone outside of their ethnicity that I suspect it all balances out. Wake me when marauding hordes of unmarried Asian men are rampaging through the American countryside, burning farmsteads and absconding with Latinas.posted by 1adam12 at 10:04 AM on September 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Geez, 1adam12, that's a bit problematic. Aside from the data upthread not showing that to necessarily be true, what if Asian men understandably don't want to date/marry the kind of person who "wouldn't ever date anyone outside of their ethnicity" (i.e. a racist, yes)?posted by naju at 10:21 AM on September 15, 2009

As someone who is black and asian, I never fully got into online dating sites and I strongly suspected that when presented with someone who looks black most people would be seeing my profile through stereotyped-colored glasses.

On the other hand, f2f I found plenty of friends and romantic partners because f2f people also have a more data (a fuller experience of the phenomenological person) that renders their stereotypes irrelevant.

None of this is to say that I haven't had any dating/friendship weirdness affected by issues of race, but my sense is that online people might pursue their fantasies (that whole Lacanian screen thing) than encounter the Real.

Speaking of screens: fantastic video. Thanks, hermitosis.posted by mistersquid at 10:24 AM on September 15, 2009

Also, a shout-out to Persians? I mean, Persians are great and all - I love the tiny limes guys - but that's kind of stretching the modern definition of "Asian".posted by GuyZero at 10:48 AM on September 15, 2009

GuyZero: A little known fact is that we'll claim to be Asian when that's more convenient than trying to convince people that we're White. Personally I loved the shout-out!posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:53 AM on September 15, 2009

Ah, man, where was this on alt.soc.oriental-fetish? Good times...posted by jadepearl at 12:00 PM on September 15, 2009

that's kind of stretching the modern definition of "Asian"

Huh? Iran is between the Mediteranean and the Pacific, you know, in Asia. "Asian" is a geographic term. I'm about to blow your mind: Iranians are both white (Iran=Aryan) and Asian.posted by Pollomacho at 12:23 PM on September 15, 2009

I also just realized the director is a guy who I went high school and college with, and the director of photography was my sorta kinda second grade boyfriend who lived down the street. I used to go to his house and watch him play Nintendo. And now I'm watching his work on YouTube via Metafilter. How worlds collide.posted by mostlymartha at 1:35 PM on September 15, 2009

But I already married an Asian guy. Where's my video about how people think we're just friends because white girls can't find Asian men attractive, let alone get hitched to them?posted by saturnine at 1:51 PM on September 15, 2009

The love whose name other people dare not speak I guess.posted by GuyZero at 2:17 PM on September 15, 2009

saturnine: Wow. When I hang out with female friends people just take for granted that we are an item, and it's not like I am good looking or anything. Maybe the fact that people are prejudiced about particular kinds of interracial relationships is a sign of progress, and a nuance that would be less likely in a more racist time, but it is really sad to hear things like that.posted by idiopath at 2:28 PM on September 15, 2009

It varies from area to area. In Australia and along the Pacific Rim, an "Asian" is typically someone from China, Japan, Korea or south-east Asia. In the UK, however, "Asian" commonly means Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan.posted by acb at 2:51 PM on September 15, 2009

You don't hear the word "therefore" too much in popular songs. I don't know why. It's a good word. Not up there with "placenta" or "lucidity", but still pretty good.posted by Mike Buechel at 3:40 PM on September 15, 2009

Okay, it's not trying to be nor is Jungle Fever trying to be Date an Asian, they don't really have anything in common except jokes about interracial relations. Really, the only reason I'm linking to this is that after listening to that song more often than I can count I can't hear the word Punjabi without thinking "you can try but you won't rob me."posted by Kattullus at 7:49 PM on September 15, 2009

OK, excellent on several levels. I like how it starts by inviting everyone to agree that dating asian women is awesome, then switches to asian men without breaking stride.

Come on. Like anyone could kick Chow Yun Fat out of anywhere he wanted to be.posted by No-sword at 4:28 AM on September 16, 2009 [6 favorites]

I'm pretty sure Chow Yun Fat enters all rooms through a plate glass window, firing two .45s and followed by a flock of doves.posted by EatTheWeak at 9:32 AM on September 16, 2009 [7 favorites]

GuyZero: Also, a shout-out to Persians? I mean, Persians are great and all - I love the tiny limes guys - but that's kind of stretching the modern definition of "Asian".

How is Iran not in Asia? The modern definition of Asian is stupid.posted by sid at 10:24 AM on September 16, 2009

It's clumsy because it's a geographical term used to refer to a racial group. The two are connected but they won't align perfectly. Iranians look like white Europeans is all.posted by grobstein at 12:41 PM on September 16, 2009

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